You actually don't have a problem with guns, you just have a problem with who has them.
Would you submit to a psychological exam to purchase and own a firearm? Renewable on an annual basis?
I would, would you be willing to pay for it?
Don't make the tax payer support your habit or obsession. Pay it yourself.
Don't make the taxpayer fund Planned Parenthood or public schools if they don't have kids then.
No problem. Or just ban the AR-15 and similar offensive weapons. I don't even care about pscyh tests. 1. Ban the assault 2. Universal background 3. 3 day waiting period 4. Close the gun show loophole.
Get that done, I'll even join the NRA.
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unsung
I stopped by on March 7 2024. First time in many years, had to update payment info. Hope all is well. Politicians suck. Bye. Posts: 9,487
people who who are opposed to teachers arming themselves. Why does it bother you? If your child has a teacher that you trust, what difference would it make it they had a concealed weapon? I bet you and your children walk by people all the time with concealed guns and you’d never know it.
That is a slippery slope. What other Rights would it apply to in order to exercise?
Its good enough for armed marshals in Texas public schools, why not the average person wanting to purchase and possess a firearm?
You didn't answer my question. Would we need to submit to an exam in order to vote too?
POLL TAX! Nice try with your civil rights trap.
Anyway, the psych test is nothing but red herring from the NRA. It's bullshit. All it will do is prevent people from getting any mental illnesses from being treated. It will have the opposite of the desired effect.
I'm a teacher, and I don't want one, nor should I have one. Want to arm me? Start paying me six figures, give me a bullet-proof vest, and put bullet-proof glass in my classroom windows.
And your solution is to arm teachers??? Are you fucking insane?? I'm a teacher, I teach children. I've been in the army, I've made the choice to no longer be a soldier, but a teacher!
I'm a teacher. I own guns. I'm adept at shooting them. This is the dumbest idea in the damn world. No teacher should have this responsibility and frankly I can't think of one I'd wholly trust with it.
I'm a teacher who qualified in the military on the rifle, handgun, light machine gun, heavy machine gun, grenade launcher, automatic grenade launcher, bayonet and hand grenades.
And there is zero chance you'll convince me a school will be safer if teachers start carrying guns.
I have said this a hundred times on here already. Why does no one ever ask teachers what they think? I'm a teacher. Teachers do not want to carry guns, we have enough to do.
I’m a teacher. The last time I held a gun was when I played Duck Hunt, and I sucked at that. My job is to connect with kids and teach them a language. No shooting required.
I'm a teacher and a gun owner with a concealed & carry permit, and I'd never want to bring a gun to my classroom. My kids need to feel safe & I should be thinking about content and not worrying about someone grabbing my pistol. Arming teachers is a gun manufacturer's solution.
I’m a teacher. I don’t want to carry a gun. I want the people responsible for my safety, and my students’ safety, to do their jobs and make our workspace safe.
This "Listening Session" reveals itself to be what it truly is: NRA propaganda for guns, guns, and more guns.
I'm a teacher and if they put guns in my school I'm out. Every other teacher I know is out. Parents will pull kids out. It's FUCKING INSANE. #GunControlNow#NeverAgain
I’m not a police officer, I’m a teacher I’m at school to teach your children, not to shoot, not to kill. Giving away more guns will not solve anything. #ParklandStudentsSpeak
Funny how congressmen have metal detectors and armed guards, but the teenagers are on thr own.... Oh wait... I'm a teacher. I guess I signed up 4 armed guard duty while getting my masters in education. FU @GOP! Just saying! https://twitter.com/Endressa1206/status/966439677006958592 …
I’m a teacher. I’m envisioning raising my pistol (after fumbling with keys to unlock it from my desk drawer) and shooting through an overcrowded classroom of 35+ students at a cold blooded killer with an AR15 spraying bullets throughout the room. Yeah. That will work.
I’m a teacher and I’ll be honest. I’m a fucking awful shot, especially with a handgun. But beyond that: I don’t want any sort of firearms in my classroom, or in my school. It’s fucking insane.
I believe if a teacher wants to be armed they should be able to, but not required to.
Something that bothers me is that that when someone breaks in, a police officer is 5 minutes out. The right to a fire arm allows you to protect yourself immediately.
Also, all these big name politicians and celeberties calling for bans either have full time guards, or live is elite gated areas. I think the average people are just as important and deserve the right to equal protection.
I'm a teacher, and I don't want one, nor should I have one. Want to arm me? Start paying me six figures, give me a bullet-proof vest, and put bullet-proof glass in my classroom windows.
And your solution is to arm teachers??? Are you fucking insane?? I'm a teacher, I teach children. I've been in the army, I've made the choice to no longer be a soldier, but a teacher!
I'm a teacher. I own guns. I'm adept at shooting them. This is the dumbest idea in the damn world. No teacher should have this responsibility and frankly I can't think of one I'd wholly trust with it.
I'm a teacher who qualified in the military on the rifle, handgun, light machine gun, heavy machine gun, grenade launcher, automatic grenade launcher, bayonet and hand grenades.
And there is zero chance you'll convince me a school will be safer if teachers start carrying guns.
I have said this a hundred times on here already. Why does no one ever ask teachers what they think? I'm a teacher. Teachers do not want to carry guns, we have enough to do.
I’m a teacher. The last time I held a gun was when I played Duck Hunt, and I sucked at that. My job is to connect with kids and teach them a language. No shooting required.
Go ahead Unsung, troll them. Please post the responses.
I believe if a teacher wants to be armed they should be able to, but not required to.
Something that bothers me is that that when someone breaks in, a police officer is 5 minutes out. The right to a fire arm allows you to protect yourself immediately.
Also, all these big name politicians and celeberties calling for bans either have full time guards, or live is elite gated areas. I think the average people are just as important and deserve the right to equal protection.
I believe if a teacher wants to be armed they should be able to, but not required to.
Something that bothers me is that that when someone breaks in, a police officer is 5 minutes out. The right to a fire arm allows you to protect yourself immediately.
Also, all these big name politicians and celeberties calling for bans either have full time guards, or live is elite gated areas. I think the average people are just as important and deserve the right to equal protection.
I think the difference is that 1. The big name politicians have trained experts that do this for a living. They aren't the undersecretary of Defense and the protection detail. 2. I for one, do not want a marginally trained teacher to handle a weapon around my children. It's not about what the teacher wants to do, it's as much about what the parents want/believe.
If they armed teachers in my school, my wife would quit work and home school the rest of the way for my kids. That's where I draw the line.
I believe if a teacher wants to be armed they should be able to, but not required to.
Something that bothers me is that that when someone breaks in, a police officer is 5 minutes out. The right to a fire arm allows you to protect yourself immediately.
Also, all these big name politicians and celeberties calling for bans either have full time guards, or live is elite gated areas. I think the average people are just as important and deserve the right to equal protection.
What if other teachers don't want to work at a school where their co-workers are armed?
After the most recent school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a 19-year old gunman was charged with killing 17 people, debate flows freely, yet again, on how to best prevent these tragedies from ever happening. Anyone with a heart can surely agree this is the overall goal. The morning after the shooting, NC State Representative Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus County) stated that he wants to work with police to train and allow teachers to carry guns in attempt to limit the death and destruction caused during a school shooting.
“We have to get over this useless hysteria about guns and allow school personnel to have a chance to defend their lives and those of their students,” Pittman said during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee, as reported by the News & Observer.
Defending children is a must, but putting a firearm in the hands of even the most trained teacher isn’t the answer. Anyone suggesting this solution has clearly never experienced a situation like the one seen in Parkland because it oversimplifies the complexity of an active shooter situation, especially in close-quarters. It is not as easy as a “good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.”
I ask that you take a few minutes to understand my perspective and why I feel strongly about this matter. Before recently moving to Charlotte, I served for three and half years as an Army infantryman, stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I deployed to Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in 2011. By the time my tour was over, I left a place that claimed two members from my company, cost six others at least one limb, wounded over 25 percent of our total force, and left me with shrapnel in my face and a bullet hole in my left thigh. When I saw the news flash of another school shooting I couldn’t help but think of the firefights I had been involved in and how these students and teachers just encountered their own version of Afghanistan.
Make no mistake, the fear and chaos they faced is no different than what my fellow soldiers and I faced in Afghanistan—a fear and chaos that I still remember like it happened yesterday.
“Martin! MARTIN!” is still audible in my mind six and half years later. I turned and saw three members of my platoon pinned down in the field behind me. Their screams still clear as day, as they called for help. A routine patrol in the Panjwa’i District had turned into an ambush, with us taking fire from three enemy positions, some as close as 20 yards (the distance of a pitcher’s mound to home plate). I, along with some of my fellow soldiers, began to return suppressive fire. Just as the first man safely reached us, the feeling of Arnold Schwarzenegger swinging a sledgehammer into my leg rushed over my body. That’s what being shot by a high-powered assault rifle felt like to me.
Assisted by an extremely calm and poised Sergeant, I was able to move to cover in a canal, as bullets cracked and whizzed by my head and exploded in the dirt around me. The sound a bullet makes as it passes mere inches away is another sound that will forever stay with me.
Luckily, or so I thought at the time, a medic was already there to start administering aid. There was only one problem. The medic froze.
The medic, who had spent at least the last year of his life training for this exact moment, could not move. When this news made its way down the line to the other medics, they came to my location and ensured I received proper medical attention.
The bullet traveled through my left thigh, shredded my left hip flexor, moved through my left butt cheek before ultimately stopping halfway in the right one (there’s a Forest Gump joke in there somewhere). Big picture, the bullet missed my colon and spine by a half-inch and traveled over a foot inside my body.
Now, I share this story not to draw attention to my actions during this firefight or as a condemnation of the medic. I simply want to illustrate how even the best trained members of the military react differently when bullets start flying. Someone shooting at you, specifically trying to kill you, is probably the most terrifying life event a person could ever experience.
Regardless of training, you don’t know how people will respond in life and death situations until the moment comes. You don’t know how people will react when they hear gunshots. You don’t know how people will react when the person next to them is shot. You don’t know how a person will respond when their task is shooting someone they know or taught. You just don’t know.
And now we are expecting teachers, even with training, to perfectly handle this situation. I say perfectly because anything less could mean even more tragedy and death. This isn’t a movie where bullets always miss the hero. These teachers aren’t action stars. These are average people, who more likely than not, have never come close to experiencing anything like this.
Few people actually run towards gunfire. Most search for cover. Some can’t function. Fight or flight. Adrenaline floods your body. Time doesn’t exist. Your heart beats outside of your chest. Fine motor skills stop working. People urinate and defecate themselves. Good luck holding steady aim at a moving target. Even the simplest of tasks, such as reloading can become difficult. Your hands shake for hours afterward. It’s chaotic on a level that is beyond comprehension until you experience it.
This what I want you to consider when the discussion moves toward Rep. Pittman’s assumption that allowing teachers to arm themselves is the proper action to take.
“There is barely enough time in the school year to train teachers on basic lesson planning and data use,” a friend who currently works for CMS told me. “So adding weaponry is just so absurd.”
Members of the military and police spend hours, days and weeks at a time training with their weapons. They train on close quarter tactics with partners, teams, squads and platoons. Safety and awareness is ingrained in you from day one. Dry runs are the norm. You practice and train methodically, going door by door, hallway to hallway, communicating and marking cleared rooms as you pass.
You do this over, and over and over. Why? Because no two professions better understand the devastation of a gun when things go wrong. No two professions better understand the actual stress of being shot at and the absolute need to remember and implement the months and years of training for these exact types of situations. The margin for error in close quarters combat, such as a school environment, is razor thin. There is a reason it’s already part of a profession that involves life and death decision making and not placed in the skillset of a high school math teacher.
The only responsibility a teacher should have during a school shooting is ensuring the safety of the students in their classroom. Period. They should be barricading doors to ensure the shooter can’t enter and leading the students by example as they implement active shooter lockdown procedures.
Further, Rep. Pittman totally disregards that a person or teacher with a gun, even with the best intentions, can create a tragedy on their own. There are what ifs on top of what ifs. What if during the chaos of an active shooter situation a teacher shoots an innocent student? Are we willing to accept this as a society? What if the teacher is shot (a very likely scenario)? What if the shooter knows exactly who the armed teachers on campus are? What if on a regular day a teacher goes to break up a fight in the hallway and the firearm is accidentally discharged?
According to an FBI study about active shooter situations, police officers who engaged the shooter were wounded or killed in 46.7 percent of the incidents. We’re talking about individuals who are specifically trained to respond to these situations and not teachers trained over the the weekend or during summer break.
I believe if a teacher wants to be armed they should be able to, but not required to.
Something that bothers me is that that when someone breaks in, a police officer is 5 minutes out. The right to a fire arm allows you to protect yourself immediately.
Also, all these big name politicians and celeberties calling for bans either have full time guards, or live is elite gated areas. I think the average people are just as important and deserve the right to equal protection.
What if other teachers don't want to work at a school where their co-workers are armed?
I believe it is their right not to work there...as with any other policy.
The potential collateral damage is not worth it. There are just too many possible negative outcomes and risks that so severely outweigh the small chance that they stop an active shooter threat, where most of the death and destruction is carried out in the first few minutes. If you don’t believe me, watch here to see what can happen in this exact situation.
This piece is not meant as a knock against teachers, nor am I by any means questioning their bravery in these situations. God knows our country has seen example after example of teachers and students shielding others from gunfire. Heroic doesn’t begin to fully explain the bravery of the person behind those actions. I’m completely certain there are teachers willing to volunteer for this role and almost positive that some have already secretly brought a firearm into school. I don’t question a teacher’s commitment toward protecting their students.
My goal here is to bring the reality of the situation to the forefront. Politicians who are blasé about the complexity and rigorous training required for these types of engagements and who underestimate the physical, physiological and psychological toll a combat environment brings to those involved, should be forced to place themselves in these types of simulations.
Ultimately, I’m saddened by the fact that we’ve reached a point where people in this country want teachers to arm themselves as moonlight deputies. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m confident that arming teachers isn’t the answer—now or ever.
Also, why are Americans so afraid of someone breaking into their homes to get them? As an outsider you come off as paranoid. Most other places don't have this fear.
After the most recent school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a 19-year old gunman was charged with killing 17 people, debate flows freely, yet again, on how to best prevent these tragedies from ever happening. Anyone with a heart can surely agree this is the overall goal. The morning after the shooting, NC State Representative Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus County) stated that he wants to work with police to train and allow teachers to carry guns in attempt to limit the death and destruction caused during a school shooting.
“We have to get over this useless hysteria about guns and allow school personnel to have a chance to defend their lives and those of their students,” Pittman said during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee, as reported by the News & Observer.
Defending children is a must, but putting a firearm in the hands of even the most trained teacher isn’t the answer. Anyone suggesting this solution has clearly never experienced a situation like the one seen in Parkland because it oversimplifies the complexity of an active shooter situation, especially in close-quarters. It is not as easy as a “good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.”
I ask that you take a few minutes to understand my perspective and why I feel strongly about this matter. Before recently moving to Charlotte, I served for three and half years as an Army infantryman, stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I deployed to Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in 2011. By the time my tour was over, I left a place that claimed two members from my company, cost six others at least one limb, wounded over 25 percent of our total force, and left me with shrapnel in my face and a bullet hole in my left thigh. When I saw the news flash of another school shooting I couldn’t help but think of the firefights I had been involved in and how these students and teachers just encountered their own version of Afghanistan.
Make no mistake, the fear and chaos they faced is no different than what my fellow soldiers and I faced in Afghanistan—a fear and chaos that I still remember like it happened yesterday.
“Martin! MARTIN!” is still audible in my mind six and half years later. I turned and saw three members of my platoon pinned down in the field behind me. Their screams still clear as day, as they called for help. A routine patrol in the Panjwa’i District had turned into an ambush, with us taking fire from three enemy positions, some as close as 20 yards (the distance of a pitcher’s mound to home plate). I, along with some of my fellow soldiers, began to return suppressive fire. Just as the first man safely reached us, the feeling of Arnold Schwarzenegger swinging a sledgehammer into my leg rushed over my body. That’s what being shot by a high-powered assault rifle felt like to me.
Thanks for sharing. What I highlighted above is exactly the point I'm trying to make to PJ Power. This is not the OK Corral, there are people running everywhere, chaos. The teacher(s) with the gun are almost as dangerous as the perp.
People that would quit their jobs with armed people on site should think about it more. A gun is just a piece of metal when in the hands of a law abiding citizen.
If people made made the decision to conceal carry they would likely be people who have shot guns, and own guns.
Just because you aren’t paid to carry a gun, doesn’t mean you aren’t skilled at using and handling a gun.
Be scared of the bad person with the gun, the gun itself won’t do shit... just metal
After the most recent school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a 19-year old gunman was charged with killing 17 people, debate flows freely, yet again, on how to best prevent these tragedies from ever happening. Anyone with a heart can surely agree this is the overall goal. The morning after the shooting, NC State Representative Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus County) stated that he wants to work with police to train and allow teachers to carry guns in attempt to limit the death and destruction caused during a school shooting.
“We have to get over this useless hysteria about guns and allow school personnel to have a chance to defend their lives and those of their students,” Pittman said during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee, as reported by the News & Observer.
Defending children is a must, but putting a firearm in the hands of even the most trained teacher isn’t the answer. Anyone suggesting this solution has clearly never experienced a situation like the one seen in Parkland because it oversimplifies the complexity of an active shooter situation, especially in close-quarters. It is not as easy as a “good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.”
I ask that you take a few minutes to understand my perspective and why I feel strongly about this matter. Before recently moving to Charlotte, I served for three and half years as an Army infantryman, stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I deployed to Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in 2011. By the time my tour was over, I left a place that claimed two members from my company, cost six others at least one limb, wounded over 25 percent of our total force, and left me with shrapnel in my face and a bullet hole in my left thigh. When I saw the news flash of another school shooting I couldn’t help but think of the firefights I had been involved in and how these students and teachers just encountered their own version of Afghanistan.
Make no mistake, the fear and chaos they faced is no different than what my fellow soldiers and I faced in Afghanistan—a fear and chaos that I still remember like it happened yesterday.
“Martin! MARTIN!” is still audible in my mind six and half years later. I turned and saw three members of my platoon pinned down in the field behind me. Their screams still clear as day, as they called for help. A routine patrol in the Panjwa’i District had turned into an ambush, with us taking fire from three enemy positions, some as close as 20 yards (the distance of a pitcher’s mound to home plate). I, along with some of my fellow soldiers, began to return suppressive fire. Just as the first man safely reached us, the feeling of Arnold Schwarzenegger swinging a sledgehammer into my leg rushed over my body. That’s what being shot by a high-powered assault rifle felt like to me.
Thanks for sharing. What I highlighted above is exactly the point I'm trying to make to PJ Power. This is not the OK Corral, there are people running everywhere, chaos. The teacher(s) with the gun are almost as dangerous as the perp.
I do not see this statement as unequivocal evidence that it would not work, but merely another opinion based on inherent fear. Thanks for the input though!
I believe if a teacher wants to be armed they should be able to, but not required to.
Something that bothers me is that that when someone breaks in, a police officer is 5 minutes out. The right to a fire arm allows you to protect yourself immediately.
Also, all these big name politicians and celeberties calling for bans either have full time guards, or live is elite gated areas. I think the average people are just as important and deserve the right to equal protection.
What if other teachers don't want to work at a school where their co-workers are armed?
I believe it is their right not to work there...as with any other policy.
Sounds like being a teacher in America is shitty enough as it is. Are you not concerned that you will lose a lot of good teachers and potential teachers if something like this is implemented? My guess is you would then have to draw from a crowd of people you wouldn't necessarily want teaching.
All this talk of what could go wrong seems a little nitpicky to me. There's a person with an assault rifle gunning down everyone in sight, trying to kill as many people as possible...and y'all are shitting your pants over the idea that a teacher trying to stop them might miss the psychopathic menace and hit a student? Some risks are worth taking.
I wouldn't even be entertaining these thoughts if I thought anything meaningful would happen in gun control efforts. IT WON'T.
Nothing is going to happen. If you think it is, your head is in your ass.
Comments
1. Ban the assault
2. Universal background
3. 3 day waiting period
4. Close the gun show loophole.
Get that done, I'll even join the NRA.
people who who are opposed to teachers arming themselves. Why does it bother you? If your child has a teacher that you trust, what difference would it make it they had a concealed weapon? I bet you and your children walk by people all the time with concealed guns and you’d never know it.
Anyway, the psych test is nothing but red herring from the NRA. It's bullshit. All it will do is prevent people from getting any mental illnesses from being treated. It will have the opposite of the desired effect.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Something that bothers me is that that when someone breaks in, a police officer is 5 minutes out. The right to a fire arm allows you to protect yourself immediately.
Also, all these big name politicians and celeberties calling for bans either have full time guards, or live is elite gated areas. I think the average people are just as important and deserve the right to equal protection.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
1. The big name politicians have trained experts that do this for a living. They aren't the undersecretary of Defense and the protection detail.
2. I for one, do not want a marginally trained teacher to handle a weapon around my children. It's not about what the teacher wants to do, it's as much about what the parents want/believe.
If they armed teachers in my school, my wife would quit work and home school the rest of the way for my kids. That's where I draw the line.
After the most recent school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a 19-year old gunman was charged with killing 17 people, debate flows freely, yet again, on how to best prevent these tragedies from ever happening. Anyone with a heart can surely agree this is the overall goal. The morning after the shooting, NC State Representative Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus County) stated that he wants to work with police to train and allow teachers to carry guns in attempt to limit the death and destruction caused during a school shooting.
“We have to get over this useless hysteria about guns and allow school personnel to have a chance to defend their lives and those of their students,” Pittman said during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee, as reported by the News & Observer.
Defending children is a must, but putting a firearm in the hands of even the most trained teacher isn’t the answer. Anyone suggesting this solution has clearly never experienced a situation like the one seen in Parkland because it oversimplifies the complexity of an active shooter situation, especially in close-quarters. It is not as easy as a “good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.”
I ask that you take a few minutes to understand my perspective and why I feel strongly about this matter. Before recently moving to Charlotte, I served for three and half years as an Army infantryman, stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I deployed to Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in 2011. By the time my tour was over, I left a place that claimed two members from my company, cost six others at least one limb, wounded over 25 percent of our total force, and left me with shrapnel in my face and a bullet hole in my left thigh. When I saw the news flash of another school shooting I couldn’t help but think of the firefights I had been involved in and how these students and teachers just encountered their own version of Afghanistan.
Make no mistake, the fear and chaos they faced is no different than what my fellow soldiers and I faced in Afghanistan—a fear and chaos that I still remember like it happened yesterday.
“Martin! MARTIN!” is still audible in my mind six and half years later. I turned and saw three members of my platoon pinned down in the field behind me. Their screams still clear as day, as they called for help. A routine patrol in the Panjwa’i District had turned into an ambush, with us taking fire from three enemy positions, some as close as 20 yards (the distance of a pitcher’s mound to home plate). I, along with some of my fellow soldiers, began to return suppressive fire. Just as the first man safely reached us, the feeling of Arnold Schwarzenegger swinging a sledgehammer into my leg rushed over my body. That’s what being shot by a high-powered assault rifle felt like to me.
Assisted by an extremely calm and poised Sergeant, I was able to move to cover in a canal, as bullets cracked and whizzed by my head and exploded in the dirt around me. The sound a bullet makes as it passes mere inches away is another sound that will forever stay with me.
Luckily, or so I thought at the time, a medic was already there to start administering aid. There was only one problem. The medic froze.
The medic, who had spent at least the last year of his life training for this exact moment, could not move. When this news made its way down the line to the other medics, they came to my location and ensured I received proper medical attention.
The bullet traveled through my left thigh, shredded my left hip flexor, moved through my left butt cheek before ultimately stopping halfway in the right one (there’s a Forest Gump joke in there somewhere). Big picture, the bullet missed my colon and spine by a half-inch and traveled over a foot inside my body.
Now, I share this story not to draw attention to my actions during this firefight or as a condemnation of the medic. I simply want to illustrate how even the best trained members of the military react differently when bullets start flying. Someone shooting at you, specifically trying to kill you, is probably the most terrifying life event a person could ever experience.
Regardless of training, you don’t know how people will respond in life and death situations until the moment comes. You don’t know how people will react when they hear gunshots. You don’t know how people will react when the person next to them is shot. You don’t know how a person will respond when their task is shooting someone they know or taught. You just don’t know.
And now we are expecting teachers, even with training, to perfectly handle this situation. I say perfectly because anything less could mean even more tragedy and death. This isn’t a movie where bullets always miss the hero. These teachers aren’t action stars. These are average people, who more likely than not, have never come close to experiencing anything like this.
Few people actually run towards gunfire. Most search for cover. Some can’t function. Fight or flight. Adrenaline floods your body. Time doesn’t exist. Your heart beats outside of your chest. Fine motor skills stop working. People urinate and defecate themselves. Good luck holding steady aim at a moving target. Even the simplest of tasks, such as reloading can become difficult. Your hands shake for hours afterward. It’s chaotic on a level that is beyond comprehension until you experience it.
This what I want you to consider when the discussion moves toward Rep. Pittman’s assumption that allowing teachers to arm themselves is the proper action to take.
“There is barely enough time in the school year to train teachers on basic lesson planning and data use,” a friend who currently works for CMS told me. “So adding weaponry is just so absurd.”
Members of the military and police spend hours, days and weeks at a time training with their weapons. They train on close quarter tactics with partners, teams, squads and platoons. Safety and awareness is ingrained in you from day one. Dry runs are the norm. You practice and train methodically, going door by door, hallway to hallway, communicating and marking cleared rooms as you pass.
You do this over, and over and over. Why? Because no two professions better understand the devastation of a gun when things go wrong. No two professions better understand the actual stress of being shot at and the absolute need to remember and implement the months and years of training for these exact types of situations. The margin for error in close quarters combat, such as a school environment, is razor thin. There is a reason it’s already part of a profession that involves life and death decision making and not placed in the skillset of a high school math teacher.
The only responsibility a teacher should have during a school shooting is ensuring the safety of the students in their classroom. Period. They should be barricading doors to ensure the shooter can’t enter and leading the students by example as they implement active shooter lockdown procedures.
Further, Rep. Pittman totally disregards that a person or teacher with a gun, even with the best intentions, can create a tragedy on their own. There are what ifs on top of what ifs. What if during the chaos of an active shooter situation a teacher shoots an innocent student? Are we willing to accept this as a society? What if the teacher is shot (a very likely scenario)? What if the shooter knows exactly who the armed teachers on campus are? What if on a regular day a teacher goes to break up a fight in the hallway and the firearm is accidentally discharged?
According to an FBI study about active shooter situations, police officers who engaged the shooter were wounded or killed in 46.7 percent of the incidents. We’re talking about individuals who are specifically trained to respond to these situations and not teachers trained over the the weekend or during summer break.
The potential collateral damage is not worth it. There are just too many possible negative outcomes and risks that so severely outweigh the small chance that they stop an active shooter threat, where most of the death and destruction is carried out in the first few minutes. If you don’t believe me, watch here to see what can happen in this exact situation.
This piece is not meant as a knock against teachers, nor am I by any means questioning their bravery in these situations. God knows our country has seen example after example of teachers and students shielding others from gunfire. Heroic doesn’t begin to fully explain the bravery of the person behind those actions. I’m completely certain there are teachers willing to volunteer for this role and almost positive that some have already secretly brought a firearm into school. I don’t question a teacher’s commitment toward protecting their students.
My goal here is to bring the reality of the situation to the forefront. Politicians who are blasé about the complexity and rigorous training required for these types of engagements and who underestimate the physical, physiological and psychological toll a combat environment brings to those involved, should be forced to place themselves in these types of simulations.
Ultimately, I’m saddened by the fact that we’ve reached a point where people in this country want teachers to arm themselves as moonlight deputies. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m confident that arming teachers isn’t the answer—now or ever.
https://www.charlottefive.com/arming-teachers/
so....armed guard doesn't "go in"....there you have it
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Why are you so afraid?
If people made made the decision to conceal carry they would likely be people who have shot guns, and own guns.
Just because you aren’t paid to carry a gun, doesn’t mean you aren’t skilled at using and handling a gun.
Be scared of the bad person with the gun, the gun itself won’t do shit... just metal
There's a person with an assault rifle gunning down everyone in sight, trying to kill as many people as possible...and y'all are shitting your pants over the idea that a teacher trying to stop them might miss the psychopathic menace and hit a student? Some risks are worth taking.
I wouldn't even be entertaining these thoughts if I thought anything meaningful would happen in gun control efforts.
IT WON'T.
Nothing is going to happen. If you think it is, your head is in your ass.